How to Make a Tribute: A Different Kind Of Guide
by Bowserboy129
Summary: Have You Ever Read A Tribute Guide And Thought "This Is No Different Then Any Other Guide" Well Then Click On The Title Above, You May Be Surprised At What You Find. *Flaws Chapter Up*
1. Intro

**Hello it is I BB and today I'm doing something new for me, making a "How to make a tribute guide". Now I've noticed that most guides tend to just tell you to "Not make your character a Sue" or "Orange is not a natural hair color" but I'm not here to do that, but instead I'm here to help you all become much better at making tributes, not just at not making Sues but also just improving the quality of your tributes. I will be going over the following.**

**1. How to add flaws.**

**2. What is OK to add to your tribute and what's offensive.**

**3. The prequel effect.**

**4. Family and friends.**

**5. Making a relatable yet different tribute.**

**6. Developing your own style.**

**7. Overall set up.**

**Hopefully by the end of this you will all be much better at creating tributes, or at the very least improved somewhat, but either way I hope you all enjoy.**


	2. Flaws

**Hello everyone and welcome to our first lesson where I will be telling you all how to add flaws to your characters. This could be anything from making them a little selfish to a crazed bloodthirsty killer, but before we just out right give them random flaws lets do a rundown of what you should do first.**

**Create their backstory.**

This, before anything else, should be the first thing you make. Not appearance, not personality, not strengths and weaknesses, but the backstory behind how they got to where they are. The only thing that you should ever do before the History behind your tribute is their family and friends, but we'll save that for another time.

Now you may be thinking "Well can't I just say he's/she's had a normal life and leave it at that" well sorry but the answer to that is no. Everyone has a past no matter how normal. I mean everyone has events in their life that has changed them in some way shape or form so tell us those events and how your tribute felt when they happened. Don't make your whole tribute's backstory one big event but instead a bunch of smaller ones. That is unless they've grown up in a foster home in which case…. Ya they'd be pretty depressed.

Anyway once you've got your backstory it's now time to work on giving your character flaws, but not just any flaws, but the right flaws.

**Flaws.**

OK Now that you've got your back story it's time to find out how your tribute should act, yep that's right it's time for you to get to work on everything else that your tribute has to offer, such as personality, strengths, weaknesses and even appearance, but how should you go about doing that?

Well let's take Katniss for example, lived her whole life in District 12. When she was young her father died in a mining accident, but before that he took her hunting in the woods to get food for the family. After words her mother fell into depression leaving Katniss and Prim to fend for themselves, leaving them close to death, but because of Peeta giving Katniss that lifesaving bread their lives were saved. After words Katniss worked up the strength to go into the woods and hunt for food, and while she didn't find any game she did find some edible plants for her family to eat thanks to a book that her father left behind after he died. After a while she worked her way further and further into the woods, catching game and supplying her family with food. She soon met Gale in the woods and the 2 soon became friends.

This backstory explains Katniss to a T. It explains why she's afraid of enclosed areas, it explains why she has Mommy issues, it explains why she can hunt, it explains why she's good with plants, it explains why she cares about Peeta, it explains why she volunteered for Prim, it explains why out of everywhere she could have gone in the 2 arenas she entered she always went into the forest areas, it explains why she's so pessimistic about things, it explains why she's never shaved her beyond hairy legs, it explains why she's friends with Gale, it explains why she misses her father so much, and hell it explains why she hunts for food.

Her back story fits her perfectly, not just with the major things, but also with the little subtleties in her character. Her personality, appearance, strengths, and weaknesses are all explained perfectly if you look closely at her backstory. Her flaws aren't random they're exact to what happened to her in her past life, so form your tribute that way.

Don't randomly throw flaws their way, think of what flaws they could possibly have if they were real and give them those. Make them rich and selfish, have them be raised around tech and make them obsessed with the stuff, make them careers and cold hearted, or bloodthirsty, or forced to train by their parents and as a result don't want to go into the games, just have it make sense unlike making the nicest person ever have parents beat them and little limbless midget sibling every night. If you do this your tribute will be oh so much better because of it and the SYOTs you submit to will also improve as well. I mean where's the fun of an SYOT if all the tributes suck and have personalities that don't match their backstory at all. Nowhere… Unless that's what the author asked for and it's a parody SYOT, in which case ignore everything I just said and go nuts.

**Anyway thanks for reading I hope you liked it. Your homework for today is to review the hell out of this and make me very happy :D Anyway see you all later.**


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